


First Steps

by Moontyger



Category: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun | A Certain Scientific Railgun
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:18:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/pseuds/Moontyger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of a student in Academy City wasn't quite like that of a student anywhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gramarye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gramarye/gifts).



It was a beautiful spring day, the kind of day made for spending time outside. It was also her first full day in Academy City and Shirai Kuroko was eager to go exploring. The little she'd seen of the city so far was beautiful: clean and gleaming and high tech, unlike any other city in the world, or so her father had told her. Kuroko wasn't quite six years old and she'd only seen one other city, but she was still certain her father had been right.

But this wonderful city wasn't open to just anyone. Only those who worked or studied here were usually permitted inside the walls. And to study here, to be able to call yourself a student of prestigious Academy City, you had to participate in the Power Curriculum Program. Which was why instead of being outside as she so longed to be, Kuroko was here, fidgeting in this sterile and boring room while she waited for her first session along with all the other new students.

The waiting room was filled with children, too many to find chairs for them all even if most of them weren't too nervous to sit anyway. Kuroko was nervous, too, which was probably why she'd been thinking so hard about what she'd do afterward. She didn't know what exactly was going to happen; none of them did. Academy City created espers, but no one outside knew how. Kuroko had wondered, of course, but she wasn't sure she cared that much. Families from all over Japan sent their children here; it must be safe. And if it was safe, what was there to worry about? The important thing was that when she left this building today, she'd be one of them - one of the famous Academy City espers.

By the time her name was called, she was so wired from a combination of boredom, hunger, and nerves that everything felt a little peculiar. The air felt strangely heavy and the reflection of bright fluorescent lights on the polished floor made her feel dizzy and a little sick.

From the name and its association with school, she'd expected a classroom, but this was more like a hospital. All the adults were wearing long white coats and the room was filled with hospital beds with strange raised sides. One of the adults had to help her climb inside it. Once she lay down, the sides blocked her view. She knew the room was full of other children just like her, but she couldn't see any of them.

“We'll have to take your hair down,” a woman's voice said, and Kuroko started. She hadn't heard her approach, but that wasn't so surprising. The room was full of loud mechanical noises as well as the sounds of several adults moving rapidly; it was easy to tune out the sounds of footsteps.

She reached her hands up to her ponytails, but the woman was already undoing them, combing them out so her hair spread loosely across the uncomfortably stiff and scratchy white pillowcase. “Would you like to hold your hair ribbons?”

“Yes, please.” Kuroko nodded, lifting her hands to accept them, then grasping them tightly. She couldn't see the woman's face, just her hands: pale, with the nails unpainted and cut brutally short. Kuroko curled her fingers tighter, her own nails pressing into her hands.

“Don't worry. It won't be long now.” 

It wasn't particularly reassuring. Not long, but not long for what? Now that she'd seen even this much, Kuroko thought she should have asked more questions. _What's going to happen to me? Will it hurt?_

“We're just going to give you something to help you relax. It won't hurt, just a little prick.” This was a new voice and these hands were larger, the nails unpainted but clearly cared for. Kuroko still couldn't see their face, but something about their grip on the syringe suggested someone who wouldn't tolerate a fuss. When she'd been a little younger, Kuroko had hated shots, but now she was a big girl, off to school all on her own, so she nodded and endured the shot in stoic silence.

She lay as still as she could after that, trying to hear if anyone was coming toward her bed, but she couldn't stop toying with her hair ribbons, twisting them around and around, winding them in spirals around her hands and up her arms. Gradually, everything else receded, the room disappearing in a strange sort of pale fog, until all she saw was white hair ribbons twined around her fingers.

“There you go. All done!” This voice was brighter than the ones before. She sounded pleased, though Kuroko couldn't think why. Carefully, the owner of the new voice helped her out of the bed, steadying her when her legs wobbled.

Kuroko tilted her head back and saw the woman was smiling at her. She tried to smile back, though she still felt confused and weak. “What do I do now?”

“You should go back to the new student dorms. You'll return here tomorrow for testing. After that, you'll be assigned to your new school!” She sounded far more excited about this than she should, but she was also the first adult here to look directly at Kuroko instead of over her head.

“Oh, okay.” She tried to sound as though she'd known that, though she hadn't. Slowly, concentrating on each step, Kuroko made her way out of the room and then out the front door.

It was already late afternoon, but the sun was still warm and the fresh air helped clear her head. Kuroko found a bench and tried to put her hair back into its ponytails. She should have found a bathroom before she left; she hadn't put her hair up herself before she came here and it was hard to do without a mirror.

Another girl flung herself on the bench beside her, grasping the back of the bench with both hands and leaning back onto them in a way that looked extremely unsteady. “Do you think they can already tell?”

Kuroko paused, only one ponytail complete, and glanced over at her. “What do you mean?”

“What talent we'll have. What level we'll be. Aren't you curious?”

She thought about it while she finished her second ponytail. “I don't think they know. If they knew, why would they have to test us?”

The other girl shrugged and pushed off the bench. She seemed far more energetic than Kuroko felt, but maybe she'd been part of an earlier group. “You're probably right. I'm just impatient. Well, maybe I'll see you around.” She skipped off before Kuroko could even think to ask her name. 

She'd wanted to explore, but now that she had her chance, Kuroko felt too tired to do it, as drained as if she'd spent the entire day running around rather than lying in that strange bed. She didn't care for the sensation, but she told herself that it must be expected. No one had seemed worried; maybe it was the other girl who had so much energy who was the unusual one.

She stood and looked around, but while there were other kids in sight, they were all older than her and already in school uniforms. Tomorrow, she'd be one of them, but she wasn't yet. 

Kuroko glanced down the street in the direction where the other girl had gone, but in the end, she turned her tired steps toward the new student dorms instead. There was no hurry. She'd be here for years; there would be plenty of time to make friends and explore.

* * *

Four years later and Kuroko felt little but contempt for the little girl with the crooked ponytails she'd once been. Power Curriculum Program sessions were still tiring and unpleasant, but they were no longer strange. They were as much a part of her life now as her dorm room or the robots who cleaned the streets and only more worthy of note because of their effect on her grades and her future.

Academy City was home now, though despite her original intentions to explore, there was still much of it Kuroko had never seen. When she'd first come here, she'd never thought it would take this long, but she hadn't really grasped just how large Academy City was. Even excluding all the sections where elementary school students weren't permitted, there was simply too much city and not enough time.

Kuroko wasn't stupid. It had only taken her a few weeks to give up her plans to explore the whole thing. It took longer for her to let the rest go: her family, her former home, everything that had come before that first session that made her an esper. But as the years went by, it all seemed farther and farther away, more like a dream than something that had really happened to her.

It helped that almost no one talked about it. Their pasts weren't a forbidden subject, at least not exactly, and visits were permitted on special occasions. But even the youngest students here were expected to be self-reliant and focused on the future, not the past. Kuroko did her best to live up that expectation. She was independent and proud of it, from the very beginning. _She_ hadn't been one of the new students crying from homesickness in the darkness of the dorm. 

It might have been different had she had family worth bragging about. Someone rich or influential, or someone connected to Academy City – students like that were an exception to the general rule. No one expected them to deny where they had come from and usually they didn't. But Kuroko's family was ordinary, nothing anyone here would admire or envy. With her Level, she had more status as an esper than she ever would have as her parents' eldest daughter.

There was nothing personal about it. She wasn't rejecting her family; it was just hard to maintain a connection. Her life was here now and theirs was not. Academy City was so different from the outside; how could anyone who didn't live there really understand? 

None of which meant that she had changed entirely. Even before she'd come to Academy City, Kuroko wasn't shy and retiring. She'd been the terror of the neighborhood since she was four years old – especially if you were a bully. 

One of the few clear memories she still had of when she'd lived at home was after she'd been in a fight. She no longer remembered the reason for the fight, or even who it had been with. Just the fact of it remained, shorn of all identifying details by time. She remembered that she'd been hurt - though the pain had become more a word than an actual recalled sensation – but she'd refused to cry, staring fixedly at her own small hands, bruised knuckles clenched tightly in her mother's skirt. And she remembered her mother: not her face, not then, but her voice, along with the sensation of her hands as she stroked Kuroko's tangled hair.

“Ah, what am I to do with you?” she'd said. Even when she'd been that young, Kuroko already knew it wasn't a question she was meant to answer. “If you expect the world to be just, your heart will always be broken.”

It was then, or soon after, that Kuroko had decided to come to Academy City. She hadn't wanted to be an esper for the same reasons she'd heard some other girls give; she wasn't seeking money or status. She'd wanted to make a difference: to be able to act on her convictions and, instead of being laughed at, see things change because of those actions. If the world wasn't just, then she'd fix it herself.

It hadn't taken long at all for the other students at her elementary school to learn that Shirai Kuroko had very little tolerance for bullying. She hated to see other students cry and went out of her way to befriend the weaker ones. In a school full of espers, teleportation was perhaps not the most useful talent to have in a fight, but it didn't always come to that. Often, all that was needed was for someone to take a stand.

This situation, however, was totally different. It was nearly time for dinner and Kuroko had been taking a shortcut back to her dorm when she saw it: a girl around her own age, trapped in a narrow alley by two men. She didn't know the girl or even recognize her uniform, but that hardly mattered; she was obviously in trouble. Kuroko had hidden just around the corner, too far to hear what they were saying, but she could see that the girl was terrified: her eyes were huge and her cheeks bright red. She was going to start crying any minute.

But this time, Kuroko was afraid, too. It was easy to make other elementary students back down, but she knew these men would be different. She wasn't sure of their actual ages; they might be high school students rather than true adults, but they were enough older than her that challenging them and making a scene wasn't going to be enough. She hesitated, hands clenching unconsciously as she concentrated. What could she do? 

When the girl at last started crying, cringing against the wall with her bag clutched tightly to her chest, Kuroko knew she had to act. She still didn't know what she could do, but she knew that the one thing she couldn't was just stay here and watch. Maybe she could teleport the girl just far enough that she could get away, though she wasn't sure what she'd do after that. They'd be sure to turn on her and Kuroko couldn't teleport herself yet. Still, their intended victim would be safe.

She took a step into the alley, then another, trying hard to keep her legs from shaking. Before she could take a third step, a hand landed on her shoulder and pulled her backwards. “Wait.”

It was a female voice, though an unfamiliar one. Kuroko was sure she'd never seen the older girl who'd spoken before, though she was impressed by her confident attitude. Her demeanor of competent composure was exactly the one Kuroko wanted to have, though she wasn't very good at it yet. “Who are you?”

“I'm from Judgment,” she said, pointing to the green and white armband she wore pinned to the sleeve of her uniform shirt. “You need to stay back here where it's safe. Anti-skill has already been summoned.”

 _Judgment._ Kuroko had heard of them, but she hadn't been clear about what they did. If she'd ever seen one in action before, she hadn't known it. (Then again, she'd never been in such a directly dangerous situation before either.) Under other circumstances, she'd have had a million questions. Right now, however, there was something far more pressing than her curiosity. “But that girl needs our help now!”

“Oh?” The older girl raised one dark eyebrow and looked at Kuroko more closely. In Academy City, age meant little. Even an elementary school student could be dangerous. “Do you know how to fight a larger opponent? Would your ability let you take them out?”

Her cheeks burning under the scrutiny, she found she couldn't lie. Kuroko shook her head, ponytails flying with the force of her gesture. “No, but we can't just let this happen.”

“If you can't help, then you need to wait here. Don't go charging in and get yourself hurt unnecessarily.”

Kuroko was prepared to argue, but she'd hardly opened her mouth when she heard the sirens. Anti-skill had arrived.

“You see? No reason to worry.” The girl from Judgment gave her a kindly smile before heading into the alley to talk to the officers from Anti-skill.

Now that the criminals had been arrested, she could have approached the the girl she'd wanted to rescue, but Kuroko hung back, watching Judgment and Anti-skill confer for a few minutes before she turned and walked away. Now that she knew what Judgment did, she also knew she wanted to be a part of it. The only question was _how_.

She could have simply asked the girl she'd met if she could join, but she doubted it was that easy. Official organizations didn't accept just anyone. Probably there were tests and interviews and applications, just like when she'd applied to come to Academy City.

That was all right. When Kuroko had a goal, she let nothing dissuade her. She'd decided to study in Academy City and here she was, already in her fourth year. Now she'd decided to join Judgment and she was certain it would be no different. Sooner or later, she'd have an armband of her own: a first step toward making the sort of difference she'd always wanted to.

And after that? She didn't know exactly, but her basic assessment from her very first day hadn't changed. Just as she'd come across Judgment now, she'd find the next step when it was time. There was no reason to rush; there would be plenty of time to find out what came next.


End file.
